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Showing posts with the label Wood Stoves

How to Start a Fire in a Wood Stove

It's taken me a little while to figure out how to light a fire in the wood stove and perhaps more importantly, how to keep it going. What I struggled with the most was determining how much paper, kindling and bigger pieces of wood needed to be in the pile in order for the firebox to become engulfed in flames, and then how quickly to add more wood to keep it burning efficiently.  Finally, after much trial and error, I  succeeded in building a great fire that quickly engulfs the wood, builds up a nice base of coals as the wood breaks down, and stays going late into the evening. Our wood stove is a free-standing Jotul F 3 CB.  It's not a very large wood stove, and so sadly stuffing it full once lit isn't actually an option.  We have to continuously feed more wood to keep it going.  The longest it can burn without inserting another piece of wood is about 3 hours, but then you'll need to start with some kindling and really coax the fire back up from nearly-exting...